Greetings from the Apocalypse: Chocolate Fountains

Greetings from the Apocalypse is a continuing series chronicling cultural ephemera that signals the inevitability of the quickly approaching end of the world. It’s like getting a postcard from the deck of the Titanic.

From its beginning as a “fancy” party accessory that was only accessible the elite of our society, the chocolate fountain has become just another in a long line of rentable objects that will distract the people attending your party from actually having to make conversation with the other guests. Or, like the inflatable bouncy room and pony rides, its absence can be a symbol to your child that you don’t care about them as much as their friend’s parents care about their children. The chocolate fountain has become a brown, runny status symbol.

But, I hear you saying, I like chocolate! Chocolate is one of life’s great pleasures. It makes me happy to dip things in warm chocolate. Why are you picking on something as innocent and delicious as the chocolate fountain?

First, look at the name. If it were listed in a personal ad as something that the author was seeking, would you think they were talking about a fountain that has chocolate instead of water or would it seem more… sinister? Wouldn’t you ask questions if you were invited to a chocolate fountain party? You should.

The first experience most of us had with the concept of a chocolate fountain was in “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” as Augustus Gloop leaned into the murky chocolate, ladling out portions and gulping them down as fast as he could. He’s warned against it but continues. Eventually, he ends up clogging a tube in the same way his own arteries will clogged when he’s a depressed, overweight middle manager at the age of 45.

Of course, despite these warnings, it is irresistible to children. And, while adorable, children are walking bags of infection and disease. Their untrained immune systems and inability to keep from touching even the most disturbing of objects (dead animals, celebrities, other children) make accidentally brushing against their hand the equivalent of rooting around in a wastebasket full of used tissues.

Recently, bacon has been unfairly associated with the swine flu. Surely it must be obvious to everyone that if another plague starts, it will begin at the side of a chocolate fountain. If you don’t believe me, attend a wedding or other event and watch. It’s not just a matter of double dipping food into the chocolate, people actually put their filthy bare hands into the cascading brown waterfall. Whatever they’ve touched, you’re eating.

After just a single child has used a chocolate fountain, it might as well be a raw sewage circulator sitting in the middle of a table of food. Whenever I see one at an event, I’m reminded of a big flood that happened a few years ago when the sewers overflowed and erupted like geysers in the street. You can be sure no one ran out of their apartment with a plate of strawberries and marshmallows to dip in that.

The bubonic plague had rats, typhoid had Mary and the next big disease will have the chocolate fountain.

Disabled Veteran!?!?! What pay too cheap for the ones not desperate for a job? Well, Sir, I take offense at your slave wages, and wheelchair sweatshops. Previously, on two separate occasion, we have seen exactly the public menace your Factories represent, especially in regards to safety hazard and health hazard your Factory has proven to be. Regardless of the eventual effect on the development of the individual, who has been Victimize! Regardless of, through the process of injury, due to your unsafe conditions in your factory; even if through the experience, the individual shows positive growth, even if through the process of injury they found that their previous defects, whether social, mental, or perhaps even a derivative of the two previously mentioned factors. Even if the discovery of this underlying and pre-existing condition caused the individual to be less distressed at their permanent dis-figuration or other deleterious physical effects, possibly due to a new found clarity and mental focus on their previous choices. Even if that was the eventual effect of the injury suffered upon the individual, this does not mitigate the fact that such an injury occurred, however I have seen no evidence that any but your famous “Prize Winners” even receive any sort of compensation for their peppermint disfigurement. Tell us mister W, how have you compensated dear Miss Violet Beauregard, have you even seen one of the B-Grade science fiction “films” that your unsafe food products, dyes and additives have forced her into, just to give her some form of income!?! Have you even looked into Mike TeeVee’s budding carrier as an aid to the elderly? Have you even take out the lazy Corporate step of funding an Philanthropy, in his name, in order to superficially appear to care, and try to show him that the structural and spinal damage that he suffered in your facility could even be to his advantage? No! And, “Sir” I must say that you are a person, who’s soul, instead of being creamy nougat, as befits one of whom which the moniker “The Candy Man” is often spoken or even sang about, is instead Black, Black, Black. And not even a sugar confection infused with an essence of caraway. No Sir! Your soul has the same properties as the matter which constitutes the majority of our reality, of which we cannot theorize the construction and constitution of it’s contents, that is your Soul! For all intents and appearances Nothing, a soul which only Atréju with the help of Fuchur, der Glücksdrache could even attempt to fathom or correct.

//counter WW 12 August 2009 at 11:19 am

Funny article, I enjoyed it. However, no one can keep me from the chocolate fountain!

//Erin 12 August 2009 at 2:15 pm

Willy…kudos for employing disabled veterans, but that sounds like you have them locked in a room full of noxious chemicals.

//Tiffany 12 August 2009 at 3:07 pm

Ephemeron or ephemera. Please.

//Uncle Bob 17 August 2009 at 8:53 am

Thoroughly sanitizing the fountain “between rentals” is irrelevant. Wahl’s point, made sufficiently clear w/ the many examples that he gives, is that “after just a single child has used a chocolate fountain” (or even a “double-dipping” adult), it becomes a haven for disease. I don’t think he was attacking the rental companies and their sanitizing practices, but rather our disgraceful habits as GUESTS at events where these fountains are featured.